Embarking On Something New

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Many times in life a person is hit by situations that are going to end up very unfavorable no matter what you do. When this happens, the only option is to choose the lesser of the, so call them, “evils”. In other words, whatever is going to be the less painful outcome is the one to choose.

I will give an example that will hopefully demonstrate what I am trying to say. The example I am going to give is using a farm and the farmer. On this particular farm there are several different kinds of your basic farm animals. There are cattle, horses, goats, pigs and chickens. One day the farmer goes out, just like everyday before this day, and checks his animals. He finds some of his pigs are sick and calls the “farm animal” vet to come and find out what is going on.

The vet comes and does some blood tests on the pigs and finds that the ones that are sick have one particular bacteria in common. With this knowledge, the farmer is given a hard choice to make. The vet has seen this bacteria before and knows it to be very contagious among the same type of animal. If the infection is in the pigs, then all of the pigs will eventually end up getting the disease and die. At least, up to this point the disease has not gone from one animal type to another. In other words it has not gone from pigs to cows, or from cows to goats.

Only half of the farmer’s pigs are sick. The farmer is given the choice of slaughtering and burning the carcasses of the sick pigs, and hope none of the others get sick, or slaughtering all of the pigs period. There is currently no way to know if the disease will spread to the other animals on his farm.

Once he is given the choice of only slaughtering the sick pigs or all of the pigs, the vet once again tells him that there is no way to know just how far the disease will spread. The vet strongly suggest that the farmer slaughter all of the pigs. The farmer has many more animals than just the pigs. He only has 12 pigs. He has over 100 other animals. The farmer knows that the longer he takes with his decision, the greater the chances that the other pigs are also going to contract the disease. But he takes his chance and only slaughters the first 6 pigs that are sick.

The next day 3 more pigs are sick. The farmer then decides to have all of the remaining pigs slaughtered. His realization is that the disease is spreading quickly and it must be stopped.The vet slaughters and burns the rest of the pigs. However the vet continues to do more research on the bacterial disease, and tests some of the other animals. It is discovered that the disease will spread between species, but luckily the farmer acted quickly enough with slaughtering all of his pigs that none of the other animals are infected with the disease.

With this story, you see that no matter what the farmer did he was going to lose some of his pigs, and possibly all of them. He did the least that he could do to try to save the well pigs. But when another 3 got sick, he made the smart decision to slaughter them all. No matter what he did, he was going to lose some or all of his pigs. He fought, and lost all of the pigs anyway. However, he did not lose any of his other animals, because of his final decision to slaughter even the well pigs.

What I am trying to point out is that he did not go down without a fight when he tried to save some of the pigs.But when the next 3 got sick and he decided to slaughter them all, he in essence saved all the rest of his animals, even though he lost all of his pigs.

We have to make these types of decisions also, when no matter what decision you make, there is something bad going to happen – the farmer lost all of his pigs. But it could be worse because something even more drastic may happen – the farmer could loseall of his animals period.

The farmer did the best he could. Even though some may say that he was a loser, because he lost all of his pigs. In essence, he was a winner. He saved all the other animals. He was a fighter, by slaughtering all of his pigs to eliminate the danger to his other animals. He was a winner, by preventing all of his other animals from getting sick.

The above story was fictional, but was the only way that I could think to be able to convey the message that I needed to convey.

The title of this post came from a poem that I wrote many years ago back in 1989. At that time, I was going through one of the hardest times in my life, from the memories of all of the abuse that I had suffered. My hopes are that the poem will help many people. I have copied it below. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t think about several of the poems that I wrote, back during that time.

WINNERS NEVER QUIT AND QUITTERS NEVER WIN

Winners never quit and quitters never win,

For if you’re a quitter then you’ve stopped trying and given in.

A fighter never won a fight without delivering a powerful blow

A runner never won a race by running very slow

This is how it goes in everyone’s life

Even in the middle of turmoil and strife

“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”

Is a phrase that helps people do a lot of growing

They say “The best things in life are free.”

And that “No one ever said the way would be easy.”

There are so many different walks in life,

Here too you have to decide what for you will be right.

If by chance the first one you choose doesn’t work,

Don’t be a quitter, but a winner and for another one look.

For you can’t give up if you want to win,

Because winners never quit and quitters never win!

ONE WHO IS GOING TO BE A WINNER!

Bonnie Jean

November 11, 1989

This poem won an Honorable Mention March 31, 1991 from the World Of Poetry.